And As For Living
by LimpBiskit
Summary: Just another shortfic. Hooray.


Title: And As For Living  
Author: LimpBiskit  
Fandom: Sherlock BBC  
Pairing: John/Sherlock  
Rating: PG13  
Warnings: Slash.

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He had come to a startling conclusion.

This man was his very Heart, albeit outside his body.

Why else would his fear, his happiness, his everything strike so deep a chord within him, that his elation and sadness would ebb and swell until he felt so, so empty and then so full as to burst-

It was all there, these and more _always more there was never enough too few moments in a day_ if he wanted them or no, his chest rang as a drum in times when no one but he could hear..

And sometimes there was so little, nothing more than the faintest trickling of pleasant memories _did you know yes I always knew believed in you more than anything_ to occupy a corner of his forever-busied mind, a shadow that covered only a scrap of logic's place in a way that neither honed nor diverted his concentration-

He dwelt upon it endlessly, and the mystery became alive in it's own right _you had none something so personal how could you_ until there was nothing but to delve in, to dive headlong into this thing called John Watson and discover the hows and whys of his being.

How much there had been, things he would never have imagined _no not the ribs oh I love that song how horrible the wallpaper is_ on his own, most involving trivialities he had somehow overlooked but never again, he had become a reliquary for all there was to be had-

A vessel, a container, even to the extent of a _dispenser_ at times, when the thought of **what would John do now** overtook him, and he would unerringly produce a known rendition of the man's past actions as flawlessly as if they did, in fact share more than merely a flat and a calling for the macabre..

But didn't they?

So very much more, he thought or perhaps it was only a wish?

No, it was true, must surely be so because who in the world could boast so deep a sense of comfort _belong here with me for you nothing mine or yours always ours_ when they were so very different, each the antithesis of the other yet neither one minding the strain of their conflicting base natures? No one, and certainly no amount of outside influence would shake the foundation of their closeknit lives, not when he _swore_ that the older man's very aura permeated their home, mingled with his in a way that was beyond the level of any physical intimacy parodied by lovers the world over-

But _there_ was another facet of his reasoning, the discordinant contact of their bodies when light gave way to unlight, the once-luxurious feel of his sheets made as coarse wool and sack-cloth when compared to the silk-sheathed hardness of his Doctor's living flesh, the play of skin and line of muscle over beloved **soul** that drew him down, down into welcome madness and chaos..

Oh, yes, beloved indeed when no other in the world could hope to tempt him so, to disarm and dissect his very will with no more than a sidelong glance and a cordial-sweet smile and God did he **love** that smile, loved it with all the force of a man who knew without doubt that there could never be another person like the one he so craved-

He sometimes wondered if some part of him had been irrevecably changed by his need, if there had been a price paid for the right to claim this singular man as his own.. But it didn't, couldn't matter, when there was so little time alloted to the mortal, his love was to be limited by the span of his forever-ending life and he had spent so terrible an amount of it _without_ his sustaining heart..

Never again.

Not so long as there **was** life in him, the faintest breath or rushing pulse of blood, these would ensure the fact of that togetherness, he would crumble to low ashes before there would ever be a moment spent completely apart, without a thought or wish for the other-

And he knew, God help them all did he know, in a way that was unreal and illogical but still so very true and actual, John _completely and utterly_ knew of the control he held over his lover.

There were times when Sherlock found himself adrift, at a loss when those beloved eyes held him as surely as any physical chain made of bright steel _the flash of candlelight on metal how lovely contained and **belonging** yours, oh yes yours_ and still he adored it, disconnected from anything that resembled nothing..

And it was _everything_.

Everything that he had never known that he needed or wanted, John Watson embodied, brought to life by virtue of his singular presence.

He could live this way, in this time and place with _this_ man, could imagine lying asleep and pressed close against the other as he dreamed of things like forever and longing-

And awakening to the warm stroke of hands made for healing _so much better with you oh you make me the way you need me to be_ as his lover divested him of any illusion of loneliness, filled the spaces between his heartbeats with nothing less than **life**..

What would he have done, he wondered, when there was time for rational thought, what would he have done if only a moment of the past were changed, if he had left the hospital that day, or if John had taken a different route through the twisted lanes of the city, or even if Mike Stamford had remembered to keep his phone? It would have been so small a thing, and a completely _possible_ instant of only one day..

He thought he would have gone mad, truly mad, burned low as a spent candle that flickers vainly in the face of all-consuming darkness though it has no means nor any hope of a revival-

And then there would have been nothing of this happiness, no kisses stolen amidst the cool steel of mortuary tables, no shuttered glances across the gore-spattered floor of a murdered stranger's uptown loft, and no evenings of ridiculously predictable movies ignored in favor of gentle fingers buried in hair that was all but invented for them..

But it was _real_, had happened to and for them, and Oh God how grateful and humbled he was to have this impossibly perfect chance at something that could very well be the **making** of him-

John Watson was his _undoing_, the destroyer of the Sherlock-Holmes-who-was.

And in his place there was a new creation, shaped of need and realization and promises made flesh, something that the world had never seen or predicted, given form by way of a madman's love and a lost soldier's genius..

It was unthinkable that such a wonder could pass into the mundane world of liars, thieves and the immoral, but here they remained, in flagrant disregard for the whens and wheres that could have sent them to opposite sides of the coin, separated by a mere trick of inconstant Fate-

But they had taken this path, frozen Destiny into something easily stored and carried with them always, and now there would be nothing less than **living** for the man who had finally, _finally_ regained his misplaced heart.

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And another. Hope you enjoyed,and remember: Comments are loved like WHOA. 


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